


Wild Horses

by LoveSupreme



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveSupreme/pseuds/LoveSupreme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Super mini itty bitty story. After a car accident that leaves him paralyzed and in a wheelchair, Charles goes to a Healing Through Horses rehabilitation system to practice his newly-re-won independence. While there he meets a handler named Erik Lensherr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Horses

**Author's Note:**

> Mini-filled for the very lovely synecdoche_and at lj first kink (http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/8700.html?thread=18755068#t18755068).

As soon as Charles did it he realized it was incomprehensibly stupid. With his left hand fixed tight to the saddle and his right strapped into the horse brush, it was going to be difficult to get himself back into his chair. And that was assuming the horse stayed still. If the animal shifted any, Charles would be dragged along with it, and then he’d really be completely and utterly screwed.

The thought of the horse bolting out of his grip, sprawling him face-first into the dirt and manure, having to drag himself awkwardly back into his chair completely filthy, having to explain it to program directors, see the pity in their eyes as they took in the ridiculous sight of him...His heart hammered hard into the side of the horse and the animal snorted, pawed at the ground, so that Charles clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable, trying to figure out how to get back into the safety of his chair before the animal fully shied away.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” a low clear voice pointed out and Charles jerked, his hand almost slipping but recatching himself just in time. Erik Lensherr ambled up to the head of the horse and Charles was even driven to smile thinly at the way the animal stretched its neck to sniff the man’s shoulder, nuzzle at his hair roughly so that Lensherr’s head was pushed about. He realized this was the first thing Lensherr had said to him since he got there, besides ‘Good morning.’

Erik Lensherr was tall; it was the very first thing Charles had noticed about him when he was introduced to the staff. Even if he still had his legs under him the man would have had an unfair number of inches over him. The very next thing Charles had noticed was that the man was incomprehensibly handsome, with a broad strong face and piercing pale eyes, a wide mouth that never looked so good as when it was smiling. The long lean body, the stunning smile, the wide, powerful hands--it refueled Charles’ flagging fantasies. It didn’t help that he’d never had such a dry spell in his life. Before his accident he had been awash in handsome men. Afterwards they all seemed to scatter to the wind.

“Oh yes...um...Angel was busy...” he remembered to answer as Erik ran his long lean hands over the horse’s brow and the length of the animal’s muzzle. He started brushing again, focusing on the movements rather than the fact that it was now only him and Erik alone together in the corral.

It was a strange situation. Normally the ranch was overriden with people. Horse-rehabilitation seemed to be a popular concept, although Charles noticed there was no one else in a wheelchair there, at least at the moment. He supposed it didn’t make sense: most of the people took special enjoyment from riding the horses, after all, and that was all but impossible for him. But he hadn’t come here to ride--he had known of course that that wasn’t likely. It was enough to do something sociable, independent, calming. It was enough to prove that he had recovered from his accident enough to do things completely on his own.

“Slower,” Erik suddenly said, bursting Charles’ reveries by reaching out and fitting his hand over Charles’, slowing his movements with the brush, keeping it leisurely rather than purposeful. The palm of his hand was very warm, the calluses rough but erotic. Even so long after his accident Charles thought of things as related to his cock. He imagined what Erik’s calluses would feel like there, scraping over what had once been the most sensitive part of him. He knew in his mind that it would feel like exactly nothing, but in his fantasies it would be just as incredible as it had been before. Erik’s voice washed over him, and he struggled to focus on the words rather than the texture of the cadence against his skin. “You’re not going it because it’s needed, you’re doing it because it feels good.”

Charles struggled to swallow, and forced himself to look up. The man was looking back at him, eyes some indiscernible color, part green or part blue or maybe even gray; he couldn’t tell in the dusk.

“I...” he started, transfixed, but distracted himself before he could confess anything. Like how much he would love to be in a position to seduce the man. “He seems to like you,” he pointed out, the horse hanging its head over Erik’s shoulder, chinning him closer. I like you, too, went left unsaid, because really. Erik was gorgeous. Even at his best it would have been a reach to try for the man, and he certainly didn’t feel like his best clutched to the side of a horse like a fool.

Erik smiled, turned his head to brush his brow against the horse’s neck, put his arm around to the animal’s dark mane, finger-combing it. “Rage and I have a special affinity for one another. We both got to the ranch at the same time. I was trying out the rehabilitative community service for troubled teens and Rage was learning how to stop being a rodeo colt. We were a good match.”

Charles blushed, getting so much information at once. He had taken Erik for rather a recluse, an introvert, based on his interactions with the other handlers and even guests for the last couple days. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s behind me,” Erik shrugged, pulling back as Rage tossed his head, shuddering under Charles’ stalled touch and making him nervous. He realized his arm was shaking with exertion, and his fingers hurt from holding so tightly to the saddle.

Erik seemed to notice it too.

“Do you want some help?” the man questioned, moving closer.

“Could you?”

Charles had meant for the man to hold his chair steady, or maybe the horse, but instead Erik fit a strong arm around his chest, his free hand pressing between Charles’ shoulder blades as the man pressed him back into his chair carefully.

“Um, thank you,” he murmured, blushing, looking away, but something drew his gaze back and he caught Erik staring at him. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it except for the embarrassed way Erik immediately dropped his gaze.

“What?” he questioned, suspicion welling heavy and thick in his chest.

“Nothing,” the man mumbled.

“You were thinking something...I guess you don’t get many people in wheelchairs coming out to play with horses,” he said, not meaning to sound so bitter but with the word choice it has hard to sound anything but.

“We get our fair share,” Erik shrugged, turning back to the horse as the animal mouthed at his shirt sleeve.

“What is it, then?”

Erik seemed to realize the he couldn’t let the subject drop without Charles assuming he was thinking something rude so, looking only at the coal-black horse, he murmured, “I was thinking that your eyes are very blue.”

His breath caught solidly in his chest, tried to blink himself into understanding. His eyes were very blue? Erik thought his eyes were very blue? It wasn’t quite the compliment he was used to. Back before his accident, back when he could walk, it would have been one of the most paltry compliments of the week. He was a flame, then, and people were drawn to him. They thought him beautiful, desirable, fuckable--the number of come-ons he wracked up on a Friday night would have dimmed Erik’s shy explanation into dust. But now...

Why was it that people couldn’t see him that way now? He was the same person, the same flame. He didn’t look that different. His hair, his face, his body, it was all basically the same. Just the chair. They put him in a chair and suddenly he was knocked breathless by the intimation that he had very blue eyes, was knocked more than breathless by it, was knocked ardent by it.

“Erik,” he sighed, but the man didn’t turn, finger-coming the horse’s mane again.

“Erik,” the tried again, shucking the horse brush off his hand and reaching, grazing his palm against the small of the man’s back and feeling it shudder under his touch. Erik turned slightly, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, and then turned more fully, to face him, to let Charles take him by the wrist and pull him down. And the look in his eyes, so surprised and eager, not as if he’d never expected Charles to have a libido but as if he’d never expected him to choose him, to choose Erik, made his heart flutter.

Not bothering to think it over, he caressed his fingertips over the strong line of Erik’s jaw, drew him in and leaned forward, kissing him light enough for the man to pull away if he wanted. But it seemed he didn’t want. Groaning softly in a way that lit Charles up inside with the memory of groans like that, the taller man pushed forward, framed Charles’ face with his long, thin hands, and kissed him harder, desperately, mouth trembling against his.

Charles couldn’t help but respond in kind, digging an arm around Erik’s shoulders, dragging him closer, tangling his free hand into the man’s hair, opening himself to the first testing flick of the man’s tongue against his lip, moaning at the hot slide of it against his own, shivering in Erik’s grasp. Pushing against him, getting as close as he could within the fence of the chair, Erik moved his hand, massaging Charles’ throat his shoulder, his ribs, lower until the touch disappeared.

Pulling back, Charles swallowed hard, flattered by the way Erik stretched forward, chasing his kiss.

“Could you put your hand back up, please?” he gasped anxiously. “Only...I can’t feel that far.”

He’d expected a certain level of awkwardness. At best Erik would blush, be embarrassed; at worst he’d remember that Charles was not the average make-out partner and change his mind.

Wildly outside the purview of his optimism, Erik instead muttered, “Of course,” shifted his grip back up to Charles shoulder to pull him back in, and went right back to gasping, plundering his mouth as if this were a completely normal scenario. He was worried maybe Erik didn’t fully understand what he was doing, what he was dealing with, but it was hard to worry about it too much with the man so desperate for his touch, his tongue, his lips. No one had been this avid for his body since the accident and he didn’t understand how they couldn’t be or how Erik could be, but he wasn’t interested in getting to the bottom of the matter at the moment.

Groaning, breaking the desperate grasp of their lips, Erik turned away, rubbing the crown of his head against Charles’ cheek, his jaw, his throat, gulping for breath. He was about to ask what was wrong, if Erik had changed his mind, but he saw the way the man’s hands were white-knuckling the arms of his wheelchair, the way Erik’s shoulders trembled.

“I won’t know what to do, exactly,” Erik admitted, breath hot through Charles’ thin shirt. “You’d have to show me.” The man jolted suddenly, looking up at him with wide clear eyes, shocked and embarrassed. “I mean...do you want me to? Only...you kissed me like maybe you wanted to...”

“Wanted to...Do you mean wanted to do...that?” Charles coughed, unsure. Surely he was not this lucky.

“Oh,” Erik hissed, flinching away with shame, covering his brow with his hand, but Charles grabbed him before he could stand away where he couldn’t get him.

“I’d certainly be...well...up for it. If... Would...would you?” The man’s face moved immediately from aghast to abeam.

“Absolutely!” the man assured, jumping in close and eager again, rubbing his palms into Charles’ shoulders, about shaking with excitement. “I mean...from the first time I saw you...Charles, I think you’re just the most beautiful, the smartest, the strongest...” Erik couldn’t seem to finish his sentence, was gasping slightly, but Charles didn’t need him to finish, wrapping his arms around the man’s shoulders and reveling in the feel of Erik wrapping him back, uncomfortably but wonderfully tight.

“Please get me inside,” he murmured. “That horse is looking at me like he knows what I’m about to do.”


End file.
